7 Habits of Highly Effective Readers

1. 7 Habits of Highly Effective Readers Joanne Kaminski

2. Our goal is to turn every reader into a highly effective reader, but before we can do that, we need to find out what highly effective readers do. • They love listening to books. • They have books everywhere. • They know how to pick out just right books. • They read often. • They read for meaning. • They like to read out loud. • They use the most frequently taught comprehension strategies.

3. Love Listening to Books • Never too young or old to listen to books. • http://www.readaloud.org/index.html

4. Love Listening to Books

5. Love Listening to Books • Get a CD player with multiple head jacks and create a station for kids to listen to a book together. • Go to http://www.storylineonline.net and have students watch their favorite actors read their favorite books. • Invite parents to come into the classroom and read to small groups of students. • Invite older kids in the school to come to your classroom and read books to your students.

6. Have Books Everywhere • Not everyone has the benefits of having books everywhere. According to research by Richard Allington 2006 • Classrooms with a larger supply of books had kids who read more frequently. • Classrooms with a larger supply of books usually had more kids reading books they could read successfully.

7. Have books everywhere • Create a classroom library with about 100 books per child. For example, if you have 20 students, then you will want to have 2,000 books. • Stock your classroom with the newest books in a series that your students love. • Do book talks to get your students excited about reading new books.

8. Have books everywhere • Create a silent sustained reading time, where kids can read books of their choice each day. • Spend a few minutes each day talking with kids individually to find out what is happening in their books and to take the time to listen to them read. • Sign up for Scholastic Book Club.

9. Have books everywhere • Read a book aloud to your class. • Talk with the reading specialist or principal to see if you can book an author to motivate kids to read and write. • Research authors that your students enjoy reading and find out what other books they have written. • Teach students how to find a book trailer.

10. Read Often If They Don’t Read Much, How They Ever Gonna Get Good? – Richard Allington According to research by Cunningham and Stanovich a student in the 98th percentile reads 65 minutes a day. This adds up to 4,358,000 words a year. Students at the 20th percentile read .7 minutes a day. This adds up to 21,000 words per year.

11. Read Often • Have your students rate books after they have read them using a 5 star system. • Post the titles of books that have the highest stars for kids in your class to read so that others will be motivated to read them. • Incorporate author studies in your classrooms. • Cut-out “stuff” – worksheets, busy work

12. Richard Allington on reading often - 2006 “Perhaps workbooks and all skill-and-drill reproducibles should be required to carry a warning: Caution. Sustained use of this product may cause reading/learning difficulties. Conversely books might carry a label that said: Research has demonstrated that regular reading of this product can reduce the risks of acquiring a reading/learning disability.”

13. Read because they love to, not because they are told to. I cannot live without good books. - Thomas Jefferson

14. Read because they love to, not because they are told to. • Create a comfy place in the classroom for kids to choose to read. You can bring in a couch and place it in the corner of the room or get some different fancy pillows that kids can arrange in different ways. • Put supplies like a dictionary, thesaurus, writing supplies, and blanket in the comfy area to read their book.

15. Monitor their reading • They read bold headings. • They read captions.
 • They look at the pictures instead of skipping them.
 • They self monitor their reading. • If something doesn’t sound right, then they go back and read it again.
 • They are able to learn the meanings of new words from the context.

16. Monitor their reading • While your students are reading during SSR time, walk around with a clipboard and ask kids if there were any parts of the book that they are reading that they got stuck on. Then ask them how they solved that problem. • Get the book How to Raise Non-fiction Reading Levels to help kids monitor their comprehension with non-fiction text. • Teach the importance of reading captions and bold headings as a mini lesson.

17. Enjoy reading out loud • 1. Raise their hand to read out loud. • 2.  Reads with expression. • 3.  Follows the rules for punctuation.

18. Enjoy reading out loud • Remember to praise your students more than you correct them. • Use rubrics to rate people when they read, so that they can get specific feedback on how their reading sounds. • Go to www.gigglepoetry.com to practice short poems with kids. Kids will enjoy reading these poems over and over again. • Talk about the importance of stopping properly for punctuation when you and your students are reading. • Use the symbols //, /, ↑, and * and the colors to teach kids how to read the punctuation.

19. Use the most frequently taught comprehension strategies • Use background knowledge to make sense about what they are reading • Make predictions before and after reading • Visualize what is happening in the story • Ask questions • Make connections • Evaluate which part of the story they like and don’t like

20. Use the most frequently taught comprehension strategies • Teach a child how to preview a book appropriately before reading it. • Teach students how to visualize and make mind movies when they are reading. • Teach your students the difference between a comment and a question. • Teach students how to make connections. • Use Venn Diagrams to compare different books. • Teach students how to evaluate books after they are done reading them and post them in the classroom for other students to see.

21. Stay Connected www.joannekaminski.com jbkaminski@gmail.com